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Plesczynski v. Sullivan

Over at the American Prowler, Wlady Plesczynski weighs in with the following criticism of Andrew Sullivan:

A month ago or so Andrew Sullivan taunted the Weekly Standard for not weighing in on the Catholic Church pederasty scandals. He should have kept him [sic] mouth shut. In its June 17 issue the Standard published a blockbuster by Mary Eberstadt, "The Elephant in the Sacristy," to which Sullivan has responded like a mouse who'd been stepped on by an elephant. After ignoring the piece for more than a week, he finally reacted a few days ago by attacking it as a "hysterical screed" and refusing to engage it. How sad to see Sullivan cower this way, particularly since "hysterical" and "screed" are the last thing one can call Eberstadt's calmly written and straightforwardly argued essay.

The problem for Sullivan is that Eberstadt's is one of those rare events, an article that clears the air and allows things to be called for their real name. Nowadays we hear all sorts of talk about the "culture" of a given institution, whether it's the FBI or Major League Baseball. Eberstadt has focused on the culture of the American church, and the degree to which it has become a homosexual culture. This culture's implicit rejection of chastity and celibacy, which are the expected norms of all Catholic clerics, has ravaged the church's moral standing. For too long the American church has lived too many a lie, and now there is hell to pay.

Sullivan must be living in a dream world. The same day Eberstadt's piece was published Time magazine ran a column by him, which it erroneously headlined: "Who Says the Church Can't Change? An anguished Catholic argues that loving the church means reforming it." Any reader of Eberstadt will probably notice that the church has already changed, perhaps beyond recognition, precisely because it's been "reforming" itself in the very way that Sullivan would approve. He just wants everyone from the Pope on down to give this change enthusiastic official approval. That, of course, can't happen, since it would be mistaken for absolution.

Ouch.

[Posted at 21:18 CST on 06/20/02] [Link]

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